A Virtual Church

Pam spam

Yesterday

When I receive a phone call from an unknown caller my phone screen reads, “potential spam.” I don’t answer because I expect it to be a con or a scam. I would be a sucker to be dragged into such a mess.

Pam Bondi dragged us into a con with her recent appearance before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. She was insolent, arrogant, and downright rude in talking to the Senators.

The one thing she did do was reveal just how deeply embedded the MAGA movement is in US government. The rot of Donald Trump is breaking down and ignoring laws, rules and order at every turn. His steamrolling autocratic, narcissistic, tyrannical actions may be harder to repair than just getting him out of the White House.

Bondi had an audience of one - Donald Trump. He was likely pleased with how she performed. The rest of us are alarmed that we are losing our democracy. If you aren’t alarmed, you aren’t paying attention. The MAGA crowd is apparently just fine with that.

We march, we protest, we vote and thus far, mostly because of the complicity of the Congress, our attempts are just a bump in the road. We are living in a time when evil has an upper hand.

We will wake up someday soon and kick ourselves for letting this happen.

Bondi’s lame response to a question was that the stock market was high, as if that was an answer that mattered to most people. She has no shame.

We want answers to the cruelty we see happening around immigration. Daily, we see an out-of-control homegrown terrorist group, aka ICE, break windows and drag people out of cars and schools and shops. Immigrants and any brown skinned people, regardless of their citizenship status, are harassed, arrested, and sent to concentration camps until they can be deported to El Salvador or Mexico.

The midterm elections are upon us. Time to put up or shut up. When we voted, the second day of early voting, only 138 people had voted before us. Midterm elections reveal how few people really care about their voting rights.

People have died working to promote voting rights. If the American people don’t care enough to vote, there is not much we can do to change anything.

I remember seeing pictures from South Africa in the first election after Apartheid was abolished. They lined up for hours for the new privilege they had.

In Ayden, voting was held at the fire station downtown. Mother and Daddy would take us with them to the polls. We saw democracy in action. My siblings and I grew up knowing civic responsibility to participate in the system that granted all our rights.

State Legislatures across the country have taken gerrymandering to a fine art. Google maps make it possible to create districts that disenfranchise whole groups of people, mostly minorities.

America was built by immigrants. None of us, unless we are American Indian, are natives.

We train distrust of differences – color of skin, gender, age. Young children are naturally innocent and inclusive until fear and hatred are seeded into their hearts.

We practice survival of the fittest, living the maxim that those who die with the most toys win.

People like Pam Bondi need to go. MAGA needs to be called out for what it really is.

Calling winners and losers is the game people play. That may work in jacks and rummy and baseball, but it is a sad and sorry way to live God’s purpose: that we love one another.

Finding moral clarity is our best hope. What is right? What will build up people? What can we do that will take care of the least and the lost?

If we lose our way to those answers, we are truly lost.

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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